In November of 2002, my father sat in my parent’s living room with a blank stare. He was always a happy man, joking and making everyone laugh. He looked around the room and said that he did not know who all the people where, and I said, “Daddy, you know who I am, don’t you?” And he said, "No." That day changed my world as I had known it. This horrible disease robbed me of my daddy. I was his little girl, and he was my hero.

He fought the disease, and on June 2, 2006, he died. But for me, he had died long before that. In the last year of his life, he lost all dignity; it broke my heart.

I will fight to the end to find a cure for this disease that affects so many more people than the patient!